


Theories to Suit the Facts

by Geonn



Category: Carole Nelson Douglas, Sherlock Holmes (2009), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2010)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Mash-up, Missing Scene, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for "A Game of Shadows"! She was the woman who outsmarted Holmes. One should always expect to find tricks up her sleeve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theories to Suit the Facts

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during and around the events of the second movie and during Nell and Irene's first few years of cohabitation during the first Carole Nelson Douglas Irene Adler novel.

In the brief time I've been fortunate enough to name Irene Adler as a friend, I've seen her run the gamut of emotions. The highest highs to the lowest lows, from euphoria to dismay. Almost always, these rampant mood swings were the result of her work in the theatre. Her face was a mask that bore countless wounds and heartache but always returned to her normal cheekiness. Bright eyes, insouciant smile and seemingly without a care in the world.

All that changed when that vile and villainous Professor entered her life. Irene became quiet, became withdrawn. She seldom ate unless I put the bowl in front of her and the spoon in her hand. She showed her gratitude with a quiet, "Thank you, Nell," her voice so meek I'd not have recognized it on the street. Some nights I was required to urge her to bed and she pulled me under the covers with her. I would hold her as I knew she needed me to, and she would stare out the window as if the answer to her questions would be writ on the clouds.

She put up an excellent front, my friend, but those who knew her well could see the burden weighing on her. The spark of life was gone from her eyes and all that remained was a façade. Some nights I remained in her bed until she had fallen fast asleep, and I stroked her cheek and wished I was wise or crafty enough to offer her help.

After the business with Lord Blackwood was concluded and Irene's acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes was renewed, I allowed myself to believe the spark had returned. She moved about our home with her former grace, she sang pieces of operettas and often ensnared me in her arms for a cheery minuet until I begged dizziness and she allowed me to sit as her audience of one to watch her dance with an invisible partner.

Our nights were joyous and happy for a brief period then. The wicked Professor remained like a sooty smut on her life, but Irene had Sherlock Holmes at her side. He was not protection, he was her weapon. She kept him close at hand as she awaited the moment she could no longer deny his grand schemes, at which point she would throw the detective at her foe like a shuriken.

The day I saw Irene truly shaken was the very day she had decided to alert Holmes to the Professor's threat. She was to deliver a package, an innocuous task ill-suited to her talents, but the Professor had reduced her to a mere errand girl after her last 'failure.' I waited for her in Trafalgar Square, for we were to have lunch following the completion of her courier duties. I waved as she approached, but she did not so much as look my way.

I fell into step beside her and saw a mix of dread and anger on her fine features. We stepped off the street together, my right hand on her arm and my left cupping her face. She turned her face toward the warmth of my glove and gripped my arm with her hand. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted. She was shaken, and I could see tears gathered like dew on her eyelashes.

"My love, what happened?"

"He tried to kill me." Her voice was angry rather than sad or fearful. She kissed my skin just below my glove and squeezed my arm. "Thank you, dear Nell. I needed your strength just then."

"Of course." She gathered herself and stepped out of the alley and I was forced to follow. As we walked, or rather as she strode and I galloped in order to not fall behind, she explained what had transpired. The package was a bomb, and the Professor arranged the situation to ensure Irene had been sitting beside it when it detonated. I was horrified. To think Irene had come so close to death...! It was only due to the timely intervention of Sherlock Holmes that Irene was able to slip away unscathed. I thanked whatever deities might be listening that she decided to ensnare Holmes into the situation at such a critical moment.

"And now I am to meet with the Professor to discuss my failures."

"But in a public forum. Certainly you'll be safe there."

She smiled, but it was without humor. "He would have killed many innocent people in that auction house without a second thought, merely to get one man out of his way. The Professor does not leave loose ends, and I fear that I have become one. I've dreaded this day, Nell, and now that it has finally come I find myself... afraid."

Even with her brilliant performances on stage, I wouldn't have thought that emotion in her repertoire.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Keep yourself safe. That mountebank thinks nothing of collateral damage. He leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, and I would not see you become one of them, Nell." She turned to me and cupped my face in her hands much as I had earlier. She kissed me once, on the lips, and then once on each eyelid. "I love you, Penelope."

"And I, you." It scared me to the depths of my soul to hear her talk this way. "Does Mr. Holmes know you're meeting with your employer?"

Irene pressed her lips together. "No, and he won't." She looked past me and scanned the street, perhaps to convince herself the master of disguise hadn't followed her. "I want you to promise me you won't follow me, either."

"I..."

"Nell!"

I blinked away my own tears and nodded because I couldn't say the words. She kissed me again and I clung to her, reluctant to let her go. But she slipped away from me like smoke, adjusting her collar as she walked confidently down the street and away from me. I worried my lip with my teeth, alone in the flood of humanity that surrounded me. My hands shook, and I felt as if I would fall if I tried to move. But finally I was forced to move or be trampled by the others on the street and I hurried in the same direction as Irene. I was not following her any more than the men around me were. London is a large town, but it still only consists of four cardinal directions. I had not lied to my friend.

I stood outside of the restaurant where Irene was set to meet the dastardly Professor. There were a great many views in London, and I was entitled to see them as much as the next man. It was mere happenstance that I chose a position near Irene's destination. I had not lied to my friend.

The diners at the restaurant emerged in a great wave, a genteel and collected evacuation. Men stood in the doorway and affixed hat to head, ladies wiggled their fingers into gloves. It was a calm retreat as I had ever seen, and I watched the crowd for signs of Irene. Panic clutched my heart in its icy grip when I realized neither she nor her employer were in evidence. I crossed the street in a mad dash, stopping in the doorway of the restaurant before I hesitated.

I would not dare attack a man like the Professor to his face, and neither should I attack him head-on. I would club the man on the back of his skull, and I should attack the building from the rear. I moved swiftly into the alley, feeling like an actress playing Irene's role. I was a typist! My slender fingers trembled as they held my parasol, and I saw a coach waiting near the kitchen entrance. I was nearly there when the door opened and two men emerged. I stepped into a darkened recess moments before they saw me.

Their voices drifted to me.

"...and pay them handsomely for the inconvenience, Colonel Moran. Dispose of the body however you see fit. We'll reconvene this evening."

"Right. You don't need the coach?"

"No. It's a lovely day for a walk... perhaps I'll stop and feed the pigeons."

The man called Moran spoke briefly again, and then I heard footsteps approaching my hiding place. I cowered, the brick sharp against my shoulders, and held as still as a mouse as the beastly man passed by me. He was staring down at something in his hands and my eye couldn't help but follow it. I was forced to press my knuckles against my mouth to keep from crying out at the sight of Irene's monogrammed handkerchief spotted with crimson speckles of blood.

I waited until I was certain the abominable Professor had left before I raced to the back entrance of the restaurant. I didn't think as I rushed inside that the other man, this Moran, was still present and posed an equal menace to his employer. I could see only the blood, could think only of Irene being the only person in the restaurant I'd not seen walk out of it, and I feared the worst.

A chef had left his white coat hanging on the corner of a shelf and I put it on over my dress. I've no idea what prompted the thought, only that I knew Irene would have done the same. I stepped out of the kitchen and saw a tall ginger man speaking to a pair of men in uniforms of the restaurant. They were arguing when my appearance startled them to silence. The ginger, Moran, glared at me and said, "Who're you, then?"

"I was told I was needed." I smoothed down my borrowed coat and looked down at myself. My dress was blue and simple. "I'm from the Guardian Angels Church in Mile End." I knew the church from tagging along to one of Irene's many plays in that section of London.

Moran motioned me forward and I hurried to where the men were standing. A table had been upended, and Irene lay on the floor at their feet. I couldn't resist a cry of alarm and sorrow at the sight of her blind eyes staring at the ceiling above our heads.

"You seem a mite skittish, sister," Moran said. The restaurant employees seemed horrified and sickened by the body in their midst.

I fought back my anguish. "I need help moving her, gentlemen. I-I... need a coach. I was not told I would be... I-I need..."

"Easy, sister. We'll get you where you need to go."

I knelt beside my Irene, my friend, and I touched her hair and her cheek and her lips. "Does the... poor child have a name?"

"Yeah." Moran sniffed something from the side of his hand. "U.N. Owen."

I pressed my lips together. "Help me lift her. Please, carefully... gentle."

The men carried the body of my friend out through the kitchen and to the waiting coach. I ensured they laid her gently upon the seat and sat myself on the floor, holding her so she wouldn't fall. Moran stood next to the open door and eyed me and I fear my ruse would be discovered. I kept my face turned from him so he'd not notice my red eyes or the tears that threatened to burst forth. Finally he spoke. "Send the coach back once you're done, sister."

"Yes, of course."

We were gone in seconds, moving infuriatingly slowly down the alley before joining the rest of the traffic on the street. I moved to Irene's head and kissed her cheeks and held her hands. I was about to kiss her lips when she exhaled. It was just a puff of air with her lips and tongue doing the bare minimum to form a word: "Don't."

"Irene?" My heart seized, my eyes widened, and I clutched her hand to my chest. She breathed in suddenly and deeply, and then clapped a hand over her mouth as she began to cough violently. I backed away from her as I saw bright red rubies of blood appearing on her fingers. She trembled with the force of her coughs, and her skin already had the pallor of the grave.

"Nell. Don't kiss me." She sagged back onto the cushion. I was glad she had warned me, for even with the cough it was all I could do not to pepper her face with kisses.

"What did that fiend do to you?"

"Poison." The word was croaked, so different from Irene's normal melodious voice that it pained me to hear. Her eyes opened and rolled upward. At first I feared she was truly succumbing, but then I understood she was simply attempting to look out the window. "Where?"

"The Guardian Angels Church in Mile End."

Irene went limp again. I wanted to beg her not to do that again, for it frightened the life out of me every time, but I knew she couldn't stop herself. I petted her hair as if she were a child or a pet, and I felt the sweat beading on her forehead. She was shivering.

"Stay with me."

"Of course, darling, of course." I remembered her admonishment against kissing her, so I rested my forehead against her shoulder and silently urged our coachman to ride like the wind along the Thames.

#

The sisters of the Guardian Angels earned their name that day. Irene's clothing was removed and she was bathed, her body cleansed of whatever poison the nefarious Professor had given to her. She was given a small cell and I was allowed to stay with her. We were forced to share a bed, but neither of us cared. I like to believe I was offering Irene comfort when in truth it was I who needed to feel her warmth to remind myself she still lived. I hope it was beneficial to us both.

Irene had no friends from the theatre, no acquaintances to whom I should alert. She lay in her sickbed and sweated through the sheets, and I bathed her and changed the bedclothes religiously. I read to her, and I kissed her fevered brow. It was the first time I realized that perhaps our friendship was mutually beneficial. As strange as it seemed, perhaps Irene needed me as much as I needed her.

When Irene was capable of sitting up and speaking, she explained that she knew her employer frequently cut his professional ties with extreme prejudice. Should she ever find herself on the wrong side of his graces, she also knew poison was the only attack she might not be able to counter with her wiles. So she made herself aware of his practices and his interests and dosed herself regularly with small poisons. Only enough to make her mildly ill after the initial dose, and to build up a natural immunity to whatever he hit her with.

The poison, when it was finally administered, was diluted by her tea. "I just let it breathe," she said. "Always let a poisoned drink breathe. Sherlock could tell you that..." She closed her eyes and tilted her head back with a smile I didn't understand. Despite breathing, whatever that meant, the poison was powerful enough to take her strength and mimic death, and recovery was slow but possible. I stayed with Irene through her treatment in the nunnery, bringing books and games and records whenever I could. We continued to share the bed, and when Irene was healthy enough we resumed nocturnal activities I won't speak of here.

Scrubbed of makeup and dressed in a simple cassock, Irene looked small and so very young. I brewed herbal tisane for her, and we often sat together in our cell and talked well into the night. Irene recovering was a much subdued version of the brightly-colored songbird I'd come to know and adore. As much as I enjoyed the quiet, I longed for that woman who had become such an important part of my life.

When Irene was finally well enough to return home, I helped her pack the things I'd brought her from our home. During her recovery we received news that Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty had met their mutual ends in Switzerland. Irene was obviously shaken by this news, uncertain how to respond to such joyous and tragic news delivered simultaneously. She received the news with aplomb, with a smile and a tear, but that night I felt her body quaking with silent tears. I held her until they passed.

The following morning, we thanked the sisters for their invaluable help. I dropped a few coins in their donation box. It was a pittance, but it was all I could afford and that made it a fortune. I joined Irene outside on a warm spring morning to wait for our hired coach to arrive and finally take us home. Irene smiled at me.

"He said I would leave his employ when he decided. But I decided." She smiled victoriously. "I refused to let him control me. I survived him. I won."

"Yes, you did." I was giddy at her healthy glow, the rosebuds in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye. "But what of your demise, my darling? Shall you make amends?"

Irene looked up into the sky and watched the clouds sail from east to west. She breathed deeply without as much as a hitch in her chest, which thrilled me. She slipped her arm around my elbow and gathered me close. "Not quite yet, dear Nell. 'The late Irene Adler.' It lends an air of mystery, don't you think?"

I was fast discovering to choose my battles with this wily woman, so I simply smiled. "Whatever you say."

As we waited, Irene began to hum. The hum grew into a tune, which flourished into an operetta. It was the first I had heard her sing since before she made the acquaintance of that horrendous Professor. She turned to me, took my hand, and began to dance with me on the sidewalk. We displaced others on the sidewalk who tut-tutted and urged consideration. Irene paid them no mind and neither did I. I didn't recognize the song Irene was humming; perhaps the composition was only written in her own head.

It is still the most beautiful music to which I've ever danced.


End file.
